Noah
Paramount Pictures | Release Date: March 28, 2014 CRITIC SCORE DISTRIBUTION
68
METASCORE
Generally favorable reviews based on 46 Critic Reviews
Positive:
34
Mixed:
11
Negative:
1
Watch Now
Stream On
Buy on
Stream On
Stream On
Stream On
Stream On
Stream On
Stream On
Expand

Critic Reviews

Critic scorePublicationBy date
91
Tampa Bay TimesSteve PersallMar 28, 2014
Despite wild deviations in spiritual themes and execution, nothing in Noah approaches sacrilege or surrender, making this an acutely sensible biblical epic. It may simply be too strange for the masses to notice. Read full review
90
TimeRichard CorlissMar 27, 2014
Darren Aronofsky brings wild ambition and thrilling artistry to one of the Old Testament’s best-known, most dramatic, least plausible stories — Noah and the ark — with Russell Crowe infusing the role of God’s first seaman and zookeeper with all his surly majesty. Read full review
90
The Hollywood ReporterTodd McCarthyMar 21, 2014
Darren Aronofsky wrestles one of scripture's most primal stories to the ground and extracts something vital and audacious, while also pushing some aggressive environmentalism, in Noah. Read full review
88
Chicago Sun-TimesRichard RoeperMar 27, 2014
This is a Noah for the 21st century, one of the most dazzling and unforgettable biblical epics ever put on film. Read full review
83
HitfixDrew McWeenyApr 18, 2014
Darren Aronofsky's Noah is not just one of the most ambitious films I've seen this year, it's one of the most ambitious films I've ever seen. Read full review
83
Charlotte ObserverLawrence ToppmanMar 27, 2014
Overall, Noah represents a respectful take on an old story by filmmakers who pose a pertinent question. The Creator promises never again to wipe humanity off the face of the Earth, signing that covenant with the cheering image of a rainbow. Does that mean he won’t let us wipe ourselves out millennia later, if we’re hell-bent on doing so? Read full review
80
The New YorkerDavid DenbyApr 9, 2014
Noah may not make much sense, but only an artist could have made it. [7 April 2014, p.74]
80
Total FilmCurtis WoloschukApr 2, 2014
Aronofsky’s first bona-fide blockbuster is a sweat-stained labour of love. Audacious and uncompromising, it’s a legitimate epic. Read full review
80
The TelegraphRobbie CollinMar 29, 2014
Aronofsky’s sixth film is not the Noah you know, but a hundred-million-dollar Chinese whisper; a familiar story made newly poetic and strange with a flavour that’s less Genesis than Revelation. Read full review
80
Los Angeles TimesKenneth TuranMar 27, 2014
Noah manages to blend the expected with the unexpected and does it with so much gusto and cinematic energy you won't want to divert your eyes from the screen. Read full review
80
Wall Street JournalJoe MorgensternMar 27, 2014
Noah can be silly or sublime, but it's never less than fascinating. I was on board from start to finish. Read full review
80
Arizona RepublicBill GoodykoontzMar 27, 2014
Taken strictly as a piece of filmmaking, Aranofsky's Noah is ambitious. And as theology, well, it may not hew exactly to the letter of the law, but the spirit survives intact. Read full review
80
EmpireDan JolinMar 24, 2014
Inventive, ambitious, brutal and beautiful: a potent mythological epic. But also wilfully challenging, as likely to infuriate as inspire, whether through its unmitigated Old Testament harshness or its eco-message revisionism. If only more blockbusters were like this. Read full review
80
VarietyScott FoundasMar 21, 2014
It is never less than fascinating — and sometimes dazzling — in its ambitions. Read full review
75
Philadelphia InquirerSteven ReaMar 28, 2014
Darren Aronofsky's Noah is the Old Testament on acid. It's the movie equivalent of Christian death metal. It's an antediluvian Lord of the Rings, fist-pumping, ferocious, apocalyptic, and wet - very wet. Read full review
75
RogerEbert.comMatt Zoller SeitzMar 28, 2014
Noah is more of a surrealist nightmare disaster picture fused to a parable of human greed and compassion, all based on the bestselling book of all time, the Bible, mainly the Book of Genesis. Read full review
75
Washington PostAnn HornadayMar 27, 2014
Viewers may not agree about what they’ve seen when they come out of Noah. But there’s no doubt that Aronofsky has made an ambitious, serious, even visionary motion picture, whose super-sized popcorn-movie vernacular may occasionally submerge the story’s more reflective implications, but never drowns them entirely. Read full review
75
St. Louis Post-DispatchJoe WilliamsMar 27, 2014
If we want a bigger picture, we’ll have to wait for God to green-light “Noah: The Next Generation.” Read full review
75
New York PostLou LumenickMar 27, 2014
Holy ship! Crowe’s grumpy Noah and his dysfunctional clan help God reboot the too-wicked world in this imaginative (but hardly sacrilegious) and visually spectacular elaboration on Genesis. Read full review
75
Rolling StonePeter TraversMar 27, 2014
Hold off on burning Aronofsky at the stake till you see Noah, a film of grit, grace and visual wonders that for all its tech-head modernity is built on a spiritual core. Read full review
75
Portland OregonianStephen WhittyMar 27, 2014
The film is best when it isn't trying to be an action epic, but is simply being a character study. Here stands a man, asked to prepare for an unspeakable thing by an unknowable presence. Read full review
75
San Francisco ChronicleMick LaSalleMar 27, 2014
Noah is no silly action blockbuster with a Biblical pretext. Rather, it's the product of writer-director Darren Aronofsky's vigorous engagement with the Biblical story and what it might mean in our time. Read full review
75
Miami HeraldRene RodriguezMar 27, 2014
Will Noah anger some rigid purists and scholars because of the liberties it takes? Perhaps. But the point to take home is the message the movie leaves you with, which works regardless of your faith (or lack thereof). Humans are inherently flawed. How we deal with those defects is what truly matters. Read full review
75
McClatchy-Tribune News ServiceRoger MooreMar 26, 2014
It isn’t “The Ten Commandments” and Crowe is no Charlton Heston. But Noah makes Biblical myth grand in scope and intimate in appeal. The purists can always go argue over “God Isn’t Dead.” The rest of creation can appreciate this rousing good yarn, told with blood and guts and brawn and beauty, with just a hint of madness to the whole enterprise. Read full review
70
NPRBob MondelloMar 28, 2014
All of which makes the film Noah psychologically credible — his behavior is very much what you might expect of a man who has just condemned millions of screaming souls to watery graves. And it makes the film unpredictably suspenseful, which is dramatically the most welcome thing you could ask of a biblical epic. Read full review
70
SalonAndrew O'HehirMar 27, 2014
There’s so much delusion and so much delight in Noah that I have trouble distinguishing one from the other, or determining whether its most outlandish flourishes qualify as mistakes or as strokes of genius. Read full review
70
The New York TimesA.O. ScottMar 27, 2014
Mr. Aronofsky’s earnest, uneven, intermittently powerful film, is both a psychological case study and a parable of hubris and humility. At its best, its shares some its namesake’s ferocious conviction, and not a little of his madness. Read full review
70
The DissolveKeith PhippsMar 27, 2014
It’s an unwieldy, sometimes overreaching effort, but the laudable ambition makes it easy to forgive some rough patches. Read full review
67
Austin ChronicleMarjorie BaumgartenApr 2, 2014
Aronofsky’s story of Noah and his ark is far-removed from our collective recollections of Sunday school pageants and Cecil B. DeMille extravaganzas. Instead, this film opts for the sort of human-scaled realism that almost allows us to smell the dank stench of a menagerie cooped up for 40 days and nights on a water-swept barge. Read full review
67
The A.V. ClubA.A. Dowd Mar 27, 2014
The result is a monolithic slab of Biblical fan fiction, at once deeply serious and seriously silly. It’s a mess, but at least it’s the mess its creators wanted. Read full review
63
ReelViewsJames BerardinelliMar 31, 2014
The movie as a whole is a mixed bag. It's overlong and a times sluggish. The fights and battles, designed to give an epic fantasy feel to the movie, are grave miscalculations. Read full review
63
USA TodayClaudia PuigMar 27, 2014
Noah is no by-the-book Bible story. Think of it as a visually mesmerizing sci-fi adventure saga loosely based on the book of Genesis. Read full review
63
Boston GlobeTy BurrMar 27, 2014
Noah is equal parts ridiculous and magnificent, a showman’s folly and a madman’s epic. Read full review
63
Chicago TribuneMichael PhillipsMar 27, 2014
Neither fish nor fowl, neither foul nor inspiring, director and co-writer Darren Aronofsky's strange and often rich new movie Noah has enough actual filmmaking to its name to deserve better handling than a plainly nervous Paramount Pictures has given it. Read full review
More From This Movie

68 Critic Reviews

5.4 User Reviews

Details & Credits|Trailers

Current Movie Releases
By MetascoreBy User Score
1 81 28 Years Later: The Bone Temple
2 77 Project Hail Mary
3 75 Send Help
4 73 Hoppers
5 71 The Sheep Detectives
SEE ALL
Essential Links
New on Amazon Prime Video
New on Netflix
Coming Soon to DVD/Blu-ray
SEE ALL